Police separated two groups organizing outside of U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan's office in Raleigh today while they were protesting health care reform.
The protest originally was organized by the national liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org, which held protests at senators' offices across the country today. The protest of about 20 people was pushing for a public option in health care reform. The national group has been watching Hagan specifically.
Another group organized by NC Freedom, a conservative group, showed up to protest against MoveOn and the public option for health care.
The group's plan, according to its Web site, was to block out the health care protest. "We need to have number sufficient to encircle their entire group," the Web site says. After protesting at different ends of the sidewalk, the conservative group, which was larger and had more signs, surrounded the group from MoveOn.
Police said the two groups were blocking the courthouse's door, and moved them to different parts of the sidewalk outside of the courthouse. Officers said it was a judgment call to separate the two groups.
Correction: An earlier version of the post incorrectly said Hagan had not decided whether to support a public option. Hagan supports the public option proposed last week by the Senate health committee. That plan is known as the Community Health Insurance option.
More after the jump
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"They should allow us to interact," said Tom Jarenko of Fuquay, who was with the counter protest. "We are not even allowed to have an open dialogue. There are elderly people out here, who do you think is going to fight. This isn't the '70s."
But representatives from MoveOn said they were not concerned with the counter protest and only wanted to make their message heard.
"For us, it's not about us versus them," said Lonna Harkrader. "We want to help everybody without health care in the country. We all know people without health care."




Re: Police split up Hagan protest
Nice job with the racial profiling "patsygar" and using ethnicity as a weapon.
An articulate brown man couldn't possibly be a citizen? Let's just pull him over and check his ID. No "intimidation" involved, right? Just musing about his race and implying he might be a terrorist, right? If Barack Obama can't convince wingers about his origins, then every brown person in America better grab an inner tube and start paddling before the "show of hands" begins? A mob doesn't "plan" violence. Violence is implied by a group working itself into an irrational frenzy.
For the record, the maligned person is a registered voter. God Bless America.